


It's a Quiet Starry Place (But With You I'm Safe)

by lost_lunar_wolf



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Constellations, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Stargazing, Stars, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Angst, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 17:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30109785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_lunar_wolf/pseuds/lost_lunar_wolf
Summary: “I asked if you knew about the meteor shower tonight.”Tony froze and forced himself to take a deep breath and hoped that Peter didn’t notice the reaction.  He had stopped paying attention to any sort of space event years ago.  In the past he kept up with the events because he loved to find the best spot to watch them all, but now- oh right Peter.“No.”  Tony answered, unsure of how long he was silent for and hoped it wasn’t too long.  “I don’t keep up with those.  Why?”ORTony used to love space, however after the Battle of New York that changed and from then on he feared the one thing he loved most.  Until one night almost 5 years later when Peter asked if Tony wanted to watch a meteor shower with him.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	It's a Quiet Starry Place (But With You I'm Safe)

**Author's Note:**

> Do I have like 100 other projects I'm working on? Yes. And did I still decide to write this entire thing while ignoring the others? Also Yes. Writing this was an excuse to project onto Tony and talk about my love for stars! Also the title is from the song The Moon Song by Karen O
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Mentioned/Implied Child Abuse, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, and PTSD
> 
> Nothing is really that bad mainly just a lot of thoughts racing. I hope you all enjoy!!

Tony used to love the stars. 

As a child he would sneak up to the roof of the mansion on Long Island to lay and watch the stars. It was peaceful for him, quiet he would describe it. A quiet place where his father would never think to look for him. But by that point his father was either too drunk to want to find him or had hit him enough to want nothing more to do with him. 

Aside from that, the stars and the moon and the planets up above were fascinating. Space as a whole was fascinating, he could see the stars, he could see the moon, and every once in a while he could see the planets — but he couldn’t see the rest of space. What he could see he was mesmerized by and what he couldn’t see he was determined to discover everything he could possibly discover about it. 

Space was safe, to put it in simpler terms.

It was always there when he needed it most. It was constant, yet always changing. It was a topic he could always learn more about, always discover something new and excited about. It was something that was his own to learn about and no one could ruin it for him.

It was rare that Tony would ever bring someone up to the roof with him. Only a special few ever got that privilege, but the night when he was 5 — only his third time to the roof — Jarvis had found him up there quieting his sniffles while staring at the stars. Jarvis didn’t speak at first, he only laid down next to Tony, but the words he spoke that night were what fueled Tony’s interest. 

“Look right there.” Jarvis had said, pointing up to the brightest star Tony could see, which Tony had always found a particular interest in the nights prior. “That’s Polaris or the North Star.” There was a pause where Jarvis moved his finger as if it was connecting the stars with lines to make a spoon like shape. “But all of those make up Ursa Minor.”

“What’s that?” Tony asked, curious as to what significance was to the formation itself, as well as what it actually was. 

“It’s a constellation.” Jarvis explained. “One of many. You can’t see all of them from here, but in different parts of the world you can see different ones.” 

“Is there a story behind them?” 

“There’s a story behind all of them.” Jarvis answered, giving Tony an affectionate pat on the head before standing up and going back inside, leaving Tony alone with questions flying through his head faster than he could comprehend and forgetting about why he had even come up to the roof in the first place.

The next day Tony had gone to the library after school and checked out all the books he could about constellations. And for years after that, stars and space were Tony’s fixation. He would go to the roof every night he could trying to find new constellations he had learned about. The nights that were particularly bad for him, he would find all the ones he knew while quietly reciting the stories of each of them to himself.

When Tony went to college at 15 he found out very quickly that the views from the top of his dorm building in Cambridge were nothing compared to what he had seen on Long Island. Nevertheless he enjoyed them just as much and was determined to find any constellations he could see in Cambridge and not on Long Island or in Manhattan.

Through their years at MIT, Rhodey had never questioned where Tony had gone almost every night for a few hours — Tony never brought it up and Rhodey never asked so why would Tony say anything? However, the night before graduation, instead of going to a party with the rest of the graduating class, Tony had grabbed Rhodey’s hand and led him through the city of Cambridge until they reached the roof of the tallest building. 

“What are we doing up here?” Rhodey asked eyeing Tony as the boy laid down on the roof.

“Stargazing.” Tony answered, and Rhodey only shrugged before laying down next to Tony. 

“Any particular reason why?”

“Well I thought I could show you my favorite spot.” Tony replied while messing with his hair, that desperately needed a haircut, nervously. “Also there’s a meteor shower tonight.”

“Is this where you go most nights?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for showing me this.”

“Thank you for putting up with me.” Tony thanked with a quiet chuckle, and when he saw the first shooting star for the night he made a silent wish that Rhodey would stay his friend even when they parted ways after graduation. 

But now — now Tony hates the stars, now Tony hates space.

Of course the one joy in his life that had never left him, was now the thing that scared him most — and it was all because of that damn wormhole. 

He saw the army that came through it, and he saw the army that was left in it. He felt the suit shut down, the dead weight it became as he was left suspended in space, the cold seeping into the suit, the suffocation of no longer having oxygen, the fear yet almost sense of peace that had consumed him because maybe this was what Yinsen meant when he had said “don’t waste your life”. Tony had always thought the parts of space he couldn’t see were full of nothingness aside from the stars and the asteroids and the meteoroids and the planets. It wasn’t supposed to be filled with an army that was ready to take over the world. It just wasn’t.

Anytime he closed his eyes and saw that army he would see the little dots of stars with it. His greatest joy and his worst fear in the same place. It shouldn’t be like that, but he supposes that he doesn’t deserve to have that joy.

That’s the worst part about the whole situation; now he doesn’t have his one joy. He can’t go outside at night anymore — seeing the stars is too suffocating, it’s like he’s going through the wormhole all over again. 

Going to a roof and looking at the stars used to be Tony’s favorite thing to do, but now it’s too terrifying to even think about.

* * *

For years after the Battle of New York, Tony avoided going outside at night at all cost. The fear even extended further than not going outside. Inside the tower any room he was in at night, the windows had to be blocked out with some sort of scenery. If there was just black it made him claustrophobic — too similar to the feeling he got while stuck in the cave in Afghanistan.

The thing is, Tony did try to get over the fear. It wasn’t like he didn’t try at all. But anytime he would go outside or look out the windows after dark, he would have a panic attack. He tried so many times, especially after his therapist had said to try it for exposure therapy, but it ended the same way every time. It was too debilitating to keep doing. 

* * *

After the whole “Civil War” debacle with Steve and recruiting Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the process, then offering a real internship to Peter after the whole Homecoming fiasco, Tony had built a sort of strong relationship with the kid. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would call it because mentor and mentee was too formal, but father and son was too intimate, they were somewhere in between but Tony wasn’t sure what exactly that was.

Peter would come to the compound Wednesdays and Fridays after school for lab days and more recently had started spending every other weekend at the compound because that was when May worked night shifts. Tonight was one of those weekends. Tony knew that the kid noticed how he kept the windows after it got dark, or how if Peter was going home after dark Happy would drive him, but if it was still light then Tony would, but he never said anything, for which Tony was grateful. Regardless, the fact that Peter didn’t ask was a constant worry within his mind. He would get paranoid that Peter would ask and he would have to explain, to the point that more than once he had spaced out with that running thought and Peter would snap him out of his head.

This stupid fear affected all aspects of his life and it sucked. Tony wanted to be able to go outside and look at the stars again, he wanted to be excited to learn about space again, but anytime he thought about it, all he could see was that goddamn army. It didn’t matter that the Battle of New York had happened over 4 years ago, he could see the army as clearly as the day he saw it in his mind. 

Granted his was improving slightly, so in a few small aspects it could be considered a win. Now there could be one or two windows that were not blocked out in a room and every once in a while on a really good day he could drive when it was dark, the only criteria for that being he couldn’t get out of his car until he was back in the tower or compound garage. It was miniscule, but it was progress nonetheless and he was told to be proud of his progress even if it was small. Either way, even though he was proud of his little bit of progress, he was still terrified that Peter would ask about it. He did not want to explain it because explaining meant reliving what had happened and it wasn’t like he could just brush it off as nothing. Or could he? Well probably not because Peter was smart and-

“Mr. Stark, did you hear my question?” Peter asked tapping Tony on the arm causing him to jump slighting and pulling himself out of his thoughts.

“No, sorry kiddo, what did you say?” Tony questioned, mentally cursing at himself for going so far into his head that he missed something Peter said.

“I asked if you knew about the meteor shower tonight.” 

Tony froze and forced himself to take a deep breath and hoped that Peter didn’t notice the reaction. He had stopped paying attention to any sort of space event years ago. In the past he kept up with the events because he loved to find the best spot to watch them all, but now- oh right Peter.

“No.” Tony answered, unsure of how long he was silent for and hoped it wasn’t too long. “I don’t keep up with those. Why?”

“Well I figured the roof of the compound would be a good place to watch it and I was wondering if we could maybe do that instead of watching a movie tonight?”

“I-” Tony started, but quickly cut himself off unsure of what he was even going to say. Of course he never wanted to say no to Peter, especially since the kid looked and sounded excited about this, how could Tony take that away from him? But at the same time, the amount of panic that crept up into Tony was overwhelming. He could probably say that Peter was welcome to go up to the roof by himself, or he could possibly ask if he wanted Pepper to go up with him, but Peter had specifically asked Tony if they could watch it together.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Peter quickly added most likely picking up on Tony’s nervous silence and now that he was attempting to focus on what was going on inside his body, probably the tense body language as well. 

“N-no, it’s okay we can do that if you want.” Tony forced himself to say, trying his best to suppress the pure terror that was forming a pit in his stomach. He didn’t want to disappoint Peter, and he had a feeling that if he said no, not only would he have to explain why, but Peter would look like a kicked puppy and that was too sad to look at. 

“Really?” Peter squeaked, his face lighting up with excitement.

“Yeah. When does it start?” 

If he knew when it was, then at least he could try to mentally prepare himself before they went up and maybe then he wouldn’t have a panic attack while they were on the roof, only after the fact.

“In about two hours I think.” Peter said after a quick glance at his watch. 

Alright two hours. Tony could do two hours. That gave him time to run through many scenarios in his head, which probably wasn’t a good thing to do, but he would do that, and it would give him time to change into clothes that he knew would feel less suffocating during an attack and it just gave him time to prepare, but it also gave him time to overthink.

“Okay.” Tony replied with a nod, already running through different scenarios in his head. “Do you wanna go ahead and order dinner so we can eat before we head up?”

Peter nodded and somewhere distant Tony heard himself ask FRIDAY to order their usual Friday night dinner, shawarma’s and fries, which oh what a coincidence the first meal he had after the wormhole was the last meal he would have before forcing himself to look at the stars. Honestly the fact the still ate shawarma considering it’s association with that traumatic event was a bit odd, but a thing in his brain that Tony would not question because he did enjoy shawarma nights with Peter. 

Time moved with a blur. Tony remembers going through the motions but not much else. He knows he and Peter ate and he knows he changed his clothes and grabbed his weighted blanket that he held tightly around his body hoping that the weight of the blanket would keep him grounded. And somehow through all of the blur he ended up on the roof of the compound with Peter and a stack of blankets. Said kid was laying down on a blanket with his head resting on a makeshift pillow made of a different blanket and Tony — well Tony was sitting criss cross next to Peter, his blank eyes staring forward in an attempt to keep the sky out of his view, with a weighted blanket wrapped around him not doing much to keep him grounded. 

Maybe it was better that he was outside with Peter rather than alone or with someone else, because he was no way in hell comfortable enough to have a full blown panic attack in front of the kid — hence the more internalized panic attack. 

The longer they sat outside the more anxious Tony became. With some situations it was the opposite, he would calm down and become more comfortable with the situation the longer he was in it, but for this situation, Tony was getting more uncomfortable by the minute. At some point he had started rocking himself back and forth after pulling his knees to his chest and continued to force himself to take slow and deep calculated breaths. He wasn’t sure how long he continued to do this before he ducked his head against his chest and rested his forehead on his knees while squeezing his eyes shut. Even having the smallest bit of the sky in his view was too much now. 

It wasn’t until he felt a hand on the upper part of his arm that he froze in place only now remembering that he wasn’t alone, Peter was outside with him, and Peter had just watched him have a sort of panic attack and that wasn’t good because Peter didn’t need to deal with his crap because Peter already had his own crap he didn’t need Tony’s piled onto it and god it was just so selfish of Tony to even have a panic attack in front of Peter when he knew- he knows that Peter has his own sometimes and Tony panicking could possibly trigger Peter then both of them would be panicking and that's even worse and-

“Mr. Stark are you okay?” Peter asked. 

Tony wasn’t sure if he could hear hesitance in Peter’s voice or if it was something else which meant Peter was probably scared to ask Tony this and Tony never wanted him to be scared of asking him things which Tony had made very clear but- 

“Mr. Stark.” Peter said again and this time Tony forced himself to focus on the weight of Peter’s hand.

Tony nodded to answer Peter’s question and hoped the kid would just let it go.

“Do you need to go inside?”

Tony shook his head. He would stay outside because Peter wanted to stay outside, it would be selfish of him to go inside and either leave Peter out here alone or force him to come inside with Tony.

“Are you sure?” Peter questioned and Tony nodded his head to confirm that he was fine. “What do you need me to do then?”

At this, Tony shrugged. He wasn’t sure what Peter could do to possibly help him. Sure it did feel a bit safer with Peter out here with him, and this was probably the longest he had stayed outside in the dark since New York, so that was a win. But aside from Peter just being out here he wasn’t sure what he needed that didn’t involve going inside, and not knowing what he needed didn’t help the situation. 

There was a silence for a few moments where Tony could only hear Peter’s soft breaths and his own thoughts, but it was the calmest— no the lightest he’s felt since being outside. He wasn’t calm by any stretch, but it did feel like some sort of weight within him was lifted somehow. 

“Do you know any constellations?” Peter asked, breaking the silence. 

Tony knew all the constellations that could be seen from New York by heart because of the number of times he had traveled the state with his parents. So he pointed above himself drawing a familiar pattern he knew by heart and knew exactly where it would be in the sky this time of year, April specifically. 

“Ursa Minor.” Tony whispered. “Commonly the Little Dipper or Little Bear.”

“Is there a story behind Ursa Minor?” Peter asked.

Though Tony was unsure if Peter was asking because he was genuinely curious or if he just wanted Tony to keep talking, Tony told the short version of the story that he knew. “Ursa Minor is Arcas, the son of Zeus and Callisto also known as Ursa Major.” Tony paused and shifted his hand to the left and traced out another pattern of stars that made up Ursa Major. “Because of Zeus’ jealous wife Hera, Arcas and Callisto were changed into bears and placed in the sky by Zeus in order to be protected from Hera.”

When Tony finished the story he made himself look up at the sky to allow the true shapes of the constellations that his brain and eyes supplied for him after years of staring at them. For some reason looking up and tracing out the shapes was almost comforting, it wasn’t as terrifying as it had been only minutes before or how it had been the past 4 or so years. 

“Are there any others you can see right now?”

Tony moved his point to the left again and traced out another set of stars. “That’s Leo, like the lion.”

Before Peter could ask Tony started telling the story of Leo and how he came to be in the sky. After originating on the moon, the lion could not be killed by weapons and terrorized the city of Nemea in ancient Greece. Hercules then killed the lion as one of his twelve labors and Zeus returned Leo to space by placing his image among the stars. 

The night continued like this, Tony pointing out all the constellations he knew and telling the story that went with it. And slowly Tony did feel the panic and anxiety leave his body as he told Peter these stories that he had told himself so many times before. Every so often they would see a shooting star and every time Tony wished he could thank Peter for being here with him and helping him. 

Space was a quiet starry place that Tony used to love until he found fear in it. But now space was slowly becoming safe again and Tony was finding his love for it again all because Peter wanted to see a meteor shower. Here with Peter up on the roof, Tony had relaxed a little and had pulled his kid close to his side while telling him story upon story of different constellations because here with Peter; he was safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I loved writing this because I haven't written something like this in awhile and I forgot how much I love to! Come say hi to me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lost-lunar-wolf)!


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